The automotive industry has taken significant steps over the years to increase vehicle safety and crash worthiness. A substantial focus of these efforts has been on the passenger compartment and improving its integrity during a crash. In more recent years, automotive manufacturers have concentrated on addressing the effect of a side impact collision on the passenger compartment. Safety standards have also been adopted requiring automotive manufactures to implement a dynamic side impact protection system or apparatus for maintaining the integrity of the vehicle passenger compartment in response to side impact collisions by laterally interconnecting the sides of the vehicle. One implementation of such standard is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,390 as including a cross-car beam extending laterally within the passenger compartment between vertically extending side structures on opposing sides of the passenger compartment. The intent of the cross-car beam in the '390 patent is to increase the lateral strength of the vehicle.
However, even in systems designed to maintain the integrity of the vehicle passenger compartment in response to side impact collisions, a side impact event will cause intrusion of the vehicle's side structure towards a passenger located in the passenger compartment while accelerating the passenger outboard towards the deforming structure tending to cause serious injuries to the passenger.
Therefore, systems and methods that facilitate an increased gap between the vehicle structure and the passenger during a side impact event and, thus, providing an additional level of safety for the passenger, are desirable.